The Metropolitan Transportation Authority launched a program on Sept. 6 to let cyclists strap their bikes to buses running over the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge between Bay Ridge and Staten Island. Pedal-promoters have been pushing the authority to let pedestrians and bikers use the iconic span for decades, and the new bikes-on-buses program marks the first time anyone without a car has been able to take a bike directly between the two boroughs. We sent our adventure correspondent Max Jaeger to try it out.
History’s greats were trail-blazers — Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, Marie Curie discovered Radium, Giovanni da Verrazzano found the New York Harbor — and I joined them on Sunday as one of the first people to use the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s “Bike and Ride” program.
When my lovely assistant and I pedaled up to the S53 stop at 86th Street and Fourth Avenue in beautiful Bay Ridge, our bus was waiting. I asked our driver — as etiquette dictates in these situations — for permission to strap on.
“As long as you can do it yourself,” she said. “I can’t help you.”
No problem! A few days before the pilot launched, the transportation authority posted a helpful video to its YouTube page outlining how to use the bus racks.
I refused to watch that video.
But it wasn’t hubris that motivated me — I wanted to test how idiot-proof the racks are, and watching the video would have undermined that experiment.
Turns out the racks are incredibly user-friendly, and if you can’t make them work, you probably have no business biking around the city.
The bike braces are emblazoned with step-by-step instructions — and there are only three steps. But you’re going to want to make sure you follow them correctly, because the Authority waives responsibility for any damage to your bike as a result of using the service.
Given our total liability relative to net worth, my lovely companion and I were on pins and needles as the bus mounted the bridge. Every time we hit a pothole, every time the driver hit the brakes, I feared the worst.
But we made it — bikes intact — and once we reached the city’s bucolic borough, the historic nature of our trip began to sink in. The lush greenery, the hilly landscapes kissed by a harbor breeze — this is how cycling is supposed to be! Not sandwiched between a Mack truck and a sidewalk shed on Myrtle Avenue or dodging pedestrians on the Ocean Parkway bike path. How could so many Brooklynites be missing this?
Of course, we heard tell that locals don’t cotton to two-wheeled folk, so we resolved to mind our P’s and Q’s by sticking to bike lanes when possible, observing traffic signals, and not lecturing drivers on their poor life choices.
Our first destination on scenic Staten Island was the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Boardwalk — a 10-minute ride down Lily Pond Road from our bus stop.
“Bike along the FDR boardwalk, from the beautiful Fort Wadsworth overlook down the sandy East Shore,” Staten Island Advance resident bike expert Vincent Barone told me via Twitter. “It’s probably close to your bus stop. It’s also the only place on Staten Island with suitable bike infrastructure.”
Indeed, the Forgotten Borough only boasts about 30 miles of bike lanes — compared to 239 miles in Brooklyn. But the three miles along the boardwalk were a treat. The shore provides a beautiful view of Bay Ridge and Coney Island I’ve only been lucky enough to see from a fishing boat.
At Seaview Avenue, we left the boardwalk heading north toward our next destination — the legendary Lee’s Tavern — for a pizza that is consistently ranked among The Rock’s best. The avenue doesn’t have bike lanes, though the city’s bike map suggests some are in the planning phase. An on-again-off-again parking lane sufficed. Crossing Father Capodanno and Hylan boulevards were our only real obstacles, but they weren’t half as perilous as Flatbush Avenue.
After a nosh — a pie with black olives, mushrooms and pepperoni, molto bene! — we set out for Bay Street and the Alice Austen House to pay our respects to the pioneering photographer. But the site was hosting a wedding, so we paid our respects to the New York Harbor and then hopped on southbound Bay Street toward Ft. Wadsworth — a great place to pedal if you like hills.
A few miles later we were back at Lily Pond Road, where a city bus took us — and our bikes — over the bridge and back to Brooklyn.
